


Lepidoptera

by LavenderProse



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Falling In Love, M/M, Origin Story, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3577104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderProse/pseuds/LavenderProse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was chosen for a program. A project. They wanted to make…better soldiers. There was a serum, they injected me with it…put me in a—a cocoon, I guess you would call it. The metamorphosis metaphor wasn't lost on me, trust me, only instead of a butterfly, all that hatched was the same old caterpillar."</p><p>The serum fails, but that is not the end of Steve Rogers. In fact, that is only the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lepidoptera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capanon/gifts).



> Posted for the Steve/Bucky Big Bang's spring fling. My prompt comes from capanon, who asked for pre-serum Steve and canon divergence.  
> This story is more or less the product of me scrambling around for a month and a half screaming internally--and, once or twice, externally. Please enjoy.

The failure of the serum is a blow on the entire S.S.R.. Colonel Philips examines Steve's unchanged form with disappointment, resentment, and then Erskine with even more. Steve tries to offer what he can to Doctor Erskine; that his lungs have never been so clear and colors have never been so vibrant and things that he didn't even know were hurting have suddenly ceased to ache. Doctor Erskine, for what it's worth, looks pleased. Philips rumbles something about looking for soldiers, not a cure for the common cold. He stomps away, the politicians on his heels and Stark not far behind them, chagrined.

When it is only Peggy, Erskine, and Steve in the room, Steve looks between them. "What now?"

"We can't send someone with your medical history overseas," Peggy says. "And with Project Rebirth…failing…I'm sorry, Steve."

Steve looks down at himself, at all five feet and three inches of his traitorous body, and lets the sting of yet another failure wash over him.

* * *

The grocery job he quit upon receiving his 1A is obviously not still there for him when he returns. There is a sixteen year old girl working the register that had been his for five years, and the elderly couple who owns the shop cannot afford to keep two cashiers on their payroll. Steve asks if they have any backroom positions open. Old Mister Cleary tells him that Tim O'Laughlin's number has just come up and they're down a stockboy, but he doubts that Steve can take over Tim's position because it's, frankly, too much for him. You have to lift 50 pound sacks of potatoes, son, and I know you just can't do that.

Steve asks to try and Mister Cleary allows it. He and Mrs. Cleary watch as Steve picks up the bag and throws it onto a shelf with no obvious strain. Amazed, they start him then and there.

Over the next two months, Steve puts on twenty pounds, an uncalculated majority of which is in whipcord muscle, and does not use his inhaler once. It gathers dust on his nightstand.

Steve has been home six or seven months, been back longer than he was ever away, when a guy named James Barnes rolls back into town from the front. There are rumors flying left and right about how he got himself discharged—some of them not so nice, because James Barnes made a reputation for himself with fighting and women—but nobody seems quite sure what happened to him. Steve sees glances of him here and there, recognizing him from a childhood on the fringes of each other's existence, a shared English class in high school, the neighborhood baseball team.

They cross paths for the first time as Steve sits on the stoop of the building he's lived in his entire life, sketching a cat which has settled in for a nap in the ray of sun that splashes across the sidewalk.

James Barnes strolls past him, stops, and backtracks to lean against the railing of the stoop. They stare at each other, silent, for several moments. James says, "Steve, right?"

"Yeah. James?"

"Yeah," he says. "Bucky to my friends."

The corner of Steve's mouth quirks up. "How'd you get that one?"

"My ma named me after president Buchanan," he says, shrugging. "Buchanan became Bucky. She thought it sounded like a real strong American name or something."

Steve says, "I was named after a deacon in the bible who was stoned to death. He's the patron saint of headaches and horses."

The grin Bucky gives him is dazzling. Steve feels his stomach swoop, traitorous. He pulls his knees closer to his chest, desperately curious as to why James "Bucky-to-my-friends" Barnes has chosen to speak to him on his front stoop at noon on a random Thursday. At the risk of tactlessness, he asks, "Why are you talking to me?" It may have been almost eight years since Steve Rogers walked the same school halls as Bucky Barnes, and much had happened since then—the War included—and eight years can change a person, but Barnes never showed an interest in him back then.

Then again, not showing an interest in a kid like Steve Rogers could sometimes be a kindness.

"Not a lot of guys our age around anymore," Bucky says. "S'all old men and dames. We shared an English class once, didn't we?"

"Mrs. Delany, tenth grade," Steve says, nodding. "We did a project together on Ulysses."

"We did, didn't we?" Bucky stares off towards the sky for a moment, contemplative. "I've, uh, heard stuff around. That you were gone for awhile and everyone assumed you'd been drafted…but then you came back. Where were you? Just wondering, 'cause I…it sounded like we might've been through something similar."

Steve smiles. "I doubt it."

Bucky returns his gaze to Steve's face, somber. "They told me that you left sick and weak and now that you're back you can lift a 50 pound sack clean over your head with one hand. Just looking at you, I believe them. We might not really know each other, but you've been around just about as long as I have and you never had that color before. Y'always looked like the wind was about to knock you over. You don't look like that anymore."

A blush rises to color his cheeks despite himself, even though he really shouldn't and the words are only truthful observation; Steve knows that he looks healthier than he has ever before. He knows that there is color in his cheeks—even when he is not blushing profusely red in the face of James Barnes' smooth voice and plump smile—and an ease to his breath and, for the first time, meat on his bones. He's been measuring himself every day to see if he is growing taller, if the serum just had a delayed reaction. He has so far been disappointed, but he holds out hope.

"That happened, yeah," Steve says eventually. "But I can't tell you how. Or why. It's…classified."

Bucky snorts through his nose, looks up and away with furrowed brows. As Steve watches, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes, slips one into his mouth and lights up. The way his lips wrap around the filter is…inspiring, to say the least.

"I got shipped out to Wisconsin when my number came up," he says, and Steve settles in because there is something in his tone that says this will be a long story. "I went through bootcamp, eight weeks. Came out with pretty high numbers so they put me into a specialized program. They teach me how to snipe and I'm good at it—I'm not just tootin' my horn here, I'm _good_. Got promoted to sergeant before I ever even saw the front. When I'm finally deployed, they stick me with the 107 th and we're in the neck of it right away. We started off in France and then worked out way into Austria via Italy…we got pretty far, too, over the next coupla months before we meet up with this bunch of Kraut motherfuckers that we just can't take down. They keep coming and coming and they've got these…I don't even know how to explain them. They were weapons, guns, but they weren't any kinda gun I've ever seen.

"We lost, all 900 of us either killed or captured. They marched us for damn near two-hundred miles, day and night with practically no sleep. That killed a lotta guys too. Finally, we get to this…base…in the middle of the forest, later come to find out it's some municipality in the ass-end of Italy somewhere. Azzano, y'ever heard of it?" Steve shakes his head and Bucky Barnes takes a moment to  blow smoke, long and thick, out of his mouth and nose. "Yeah, you wouldn't have. Nothing around there but trees, trees and more fuckin' trees." He sighs and ashes his cigarette against the railing of the stoop. "We were put into a, uh…camp, I guess, only it was practically all underground. Kept us in cages, ten or twelve of us to each, barely enough room for all of us to sit let alone lay down."

Steve can't help the ragged noise that comes out of his mouth. He knows these things happen, has been hearing about them for over a year now as men return injured and dismembered from the European front, but to imagine James Barnes who he watched from afar in high school, in lessons and around a baseball diamond practically every day of every spring, for four years in a place like that is a revolt on his senses.

There is a soft, far away look on Bucky's face even as he looks into Steve's eyes. "We were there for months. I lost count, but it was May when we went in…and September when they got us out. Some, uh…some crazy guy with a plane, and this broad—this lady, they got us out. About 700 of us went in, and only four hundred came out. They were taking us one by one, doing things, killing us. Me and the guys in my cage, we…they had us hauling the bodies to the furnace. They burned up and turned into ash and the feeling of it on your skin is…" He stops, perhaps seeing the look on Steve's face. He drops his cigarette, less than half smoked onto the concrete and stomps on it. "Fuck, sorry. You don't wanna hear all that, sorry."

"No, it's fine," Steve says softly. "I'm not delicate. I might not've been to war but I figure that means I should do my part by sitting around and listening to what those who were have to say about it." He pats the cement of the stoop, bare hand making a loud slapping sound. "Sit, if you like."

Bucky takes the offer slowly, like he's unsure of himself even as he's moving. He sits closer than Steve would have thought, their hips pressed together on the warm cement. He draws his legs up towards his own armpits, rests his forearms on them and lets his hands dangle into the space between his knees. Steve stares at him, the manly lines of him, and feels the worst kind of wicked.

"They, ah…they came for me one day," he says, hand running through the back of his hair. "Came to the cage and said…you," he points with his finger, hard look on his face. " _Amerikaner_. They take me to this room and strap me onto a table. I thought I was dead. This frog looking motherfucker's staring down at me and asking me shit and I give 'em the old name, rank, serial number because that's what they teach you; they'll ask you things, boys, if they get their hands on you, and all you do is look 'em in their fat fuckin' faces and give 'em your name, rank, serial number. Nothing else.

"I wasn't gonna be the reason we lost the war. I reckon that the country and everyone in it is more important than me. They coulda killed me, I didn't care. I'd been there for so long that I didn't see an end to it, and life wasn't worth living anymore. I think we were all just waiting to die from something.

"He put something in me, three injections right here," he points to his neck, his jugular vein. "Don't fuckin' know what it was. Still don't. I tell you what it felt like, though—pure fire is what it felt like."

Steve looks down and closes his eyes. Pure fire in the veins. He knows that feeling well.

"They let me there for days," he says. His eyes stare a hole into the ground. "Next thing I know, the entire damned place is coming down around my head. A concrete fucking slab fell on me and I lifted it off. It musta been 600 pounds at least, and it wasn't much harder for me to pick it up than it was for me to lift boxes back when I worked on the docks." He sighs, holds out his hand. It trembles. "They won't fuckin' stop shaking. I've been this way ever since. I picked up my niece when I got home and I damn near sent her flying over my head. Haven't touched her since, been to scared."

Steve drops his hand next to his hip, squeezes his eyes closed and flexes his fingers. He can hear Bucky's hastened breathing next to him, can't think of anything to say to him except, "I was chosen for a program. A project. They wanted to make…better soldiers. There was a serum, they injected me with it…put me in a—a cocoon, I guess you would call it. The metamorphosis metaphor wasn't lost on me, trust me, only instead of a butterfly, all that hatched was the same old caterpillar." He rubs a hand into his forehead. "I'm healthier than a horse and I can lift four times my own weight, but they wanted a supersoldier. The pinnacle of manliness, you know? Some handsome, perfect example of Americanism that'd send all the Nazis running as soon as they set eyes on him."

Quietly, Bucky asks, "Were you supposed to tell me that?"

Steve smiles at the ground. "Doesn't much matter now, does it?"

"I suppose not," he says, and they marinate in their mutual silence the rest of the afternoon. Bucky leaves wordlessly with the sun, and Steve wonders if it was simply one of those strange, one-time occurrences.

* * *

Bucky is waiting for him when he comes out of the grocery the following Friday night.

"Hey," he says, pushing himself off the wall. "Uh, I hope this isn't odd."

Steve smiles. "No, it's fine. How are you?"

"Oh, y'know." He holds up his hand, which tremors finely still, as if it is an answer. To Steve, it is. "Keeping on keeping on."

They start down the street, shoulders brushing and a comfortable silence wrapping them in its bubble. The day grows dim around them as they walk the dozen blocks to Steve's apartment, and the blueness of twilight is entirely present by the time they reach his stoop. He turns to Bucky and gestures over his shoulder, says, "So, this is me. Um…do you want to come up for a few minutes? I have coffee. The real stuff. Perks of being a grocery boy."

Bucky smirks. "You don't look like a boy to me."

Steve's breath catches in his throat and his eyes fly to the ground. He can feel a blush rise in his cheeks, like some kind of dame—some teenager. When he speaks, his voice is higher than he would have liked. "I have tea, too."

"It's tempting," Bucky says, "but I can't, not really."

"Oh. Alright." He wonders what the point of Bucky Barnes walking him home has been.

"Can I do this again tomorrow?"

"Do what?"

"Um…" Bucky scratches the back of his neck. "Walk you home?"

It's then that Steve gets the distinct impression that he's being courted. It's clumsy and quietly subtle, nothing that can be incriminated if the signals are being misconstrued, but Steve is fairly confident that he has not misinterpreted what is happening. He digs his fingers into the strap of his bag, closes his eyes and opens his big mouth.

"I'm not queer," he says softly.

"No, no, I—"

"And neither are you," he says, equally as softly, "you're just my old friend from high school Bucky, and I'm helping you get used to bein' back home. Nothing weird. Right?"

"Yeah," Bucky says softly.

* * *

Bucky walks him home every day for a month. They never walk any closer than that first day and every day Steve asks Bucky up for a cup of coffee. Every day, Bucky apologizes, says he'd like to but can't, and marches off down the street.

* * *

Every other Saturday is delivery day. Steve almost always stays late and stocks the shelves and makes sure they're all straight. He tells Mr. and Mrs. Cleary to leave and he'll close up, and it's a testament to how much they trust him that they are only too happy to leave him with the keys, even if it means he will both have to close on Saturday night and open on Monday morning.

The bell chimes long after the shop is closed and Steve pokes his head around a shelf, says, "Sorry, we're closed—"

Bucky props his hip against the cash register and smiles at Steve's sudden lack of speech. He says, "Hey," and Steve says, "Just let me finish here—" and Bucky says, "No, it's fine—" and then there's more silence and a quiet, shared smile.

"I'm closing up," Steve informs as he walks back to the corner, picks up a box full of Carnation evaporated milk and carries it behind the counter. "I'll only be a few more minutes, I've just got to finish putting this on the shelf…" He strains towards the top shelf, effortlessly lifting sixteen cans of evaporated milk but entirely unable to reach the top shelf. He lets his annoyance out in a huff as he continues straining, up on his toes. "Do you see a stepladder around anywhere?"

"Uh, here, let me—"

Several long, thumping strides take Bucky across the room and behind Steve, where he presses big and warm and helps Steve shove the cans onto the top shelf. Steve's breath catches in his throat, trying not to move a muscle as all of Bucky presses against all of him. It's a heady kind of sensation, even with the purely innocent intentions behind it. Steve hovers his hands uselessly above his own head as Bucky takes the box with equally little problem and pushes it up onto the shelf, far back and secure.

"Thanks," he says, risking turning around to look up at Bucky, give him his gratitude face-to-face. "I, uh, have no idea where I put the stepladder."

"No problem," Bucky says. His hand goes to Steve's shoulder, and then his finger slips under one of Steve's suspenders, trailing down like it's twisted around and he's straightening it. "Gotta admit, I might've done it for a pretty selfish reason."

"Oh?" Steve leans back against the shelving unit, grasps the shelf at hip-level with both hands and straightens his back, makes himself as tall as he can. "What, uh, what would that be?"

"Thought I might plant one on you," Bucky says. "See how you liked that."

"Oh." Steve swallows hard, apple bobbling. "I'd like that."

"Yeah?" Bucky murmurs, leaning down.

"Yeah."

Their mouths slot together comfortably. Bucky's lips are warm and plump, just the hint of wetness from his tongue. It is a sensation that goes straight to Steve's toes.

* * *

"Come up for a cup of coffee?"

Before Bucky can even do his signature move of grimace-shrug-headshake, Steve asks, "What is it that you have to do every single day? What are you afraid of?"

Bucky sighs. "Nothing, just…bein' alone with you, it's…at first I thought I'd say something stupid, and now I'm not sure what I'd say."

"That's never been a problem before," Steve says. Conversation flows easily between them when it wants to, and their silences are not awkward when it doesn't. Much of their time is spend quietly walking, the chill of winter setting into their bones. Steve enjoys it, their walks home and their quiets and their talks, the feel of Bucky's arm against his shoulder and the cold on his face. He has found new joy in the nip of winter, now that he no longer has to be afraid of it.

Bucky sighs and, to Steve's surprise, a flush rises in his cheeks. Bucky doesn't blush often. Or ever, really; not that Steve has seen. The man seems utterly unashamed of who he is and what he talks about. Sometimes he gets quiet and solemn, but for reasons that are far from any that would send a man blushing.

Yet here they are.

"What?" Steve asks, ducking his head to catch Bucky's. He can feel the smile playing on his own lips and does nothing to repress it. Bucky has a way of making him feel coy, flirty even though all he's ever known is awkwardness and lack of grace.

"I'm tryin' to be proper here, Steve," he says, rolling his eyes back and forth in his head. "I'm…y'know. Hands off and all that. I wanna…" He sighs, shrugs. He blush deepens. "Sometimes it's all I can think about, touching you, but…"

"Who says I don't want you to?" Steve murmurs. A blush of his own rises in his cheeks. He's never been good at speaking about such things.

"I…"

"It's not like either of us has to make sure that we'll be entitled to a white wedding dress," Steve says. "Come up and have a cup of coffee." He glances up and down the street and finds no one in the cold darkness, then holds out one mittened hand for Bucky's. He takes it, a big and warm palm pressed tight against Steve's. Steve tugs him towards the door, grins even as the back of his neck tingles, bashful even as he's bold. "Afterwards, you can put your hands wherever you want."

Upstairs, Bucky puts his hands absolutely _everywhere_.

* * *

Bucky helps Steve set up a Christmas tree in his living room—which is also his bedroom and his dining room and practically everything that isn't the watercloset, which is down the hall. It's real, a little fir that Bucky bought on the cheap from a lady two blocks down and one over who sells seeds in the spring, flowers in the summer and pumpkins in the fall. They make garland out of popcorn and hang paper dolls and make cookies. They laugh and kiss and touch and it's the best Christmas Steve can remember since he was a little kid.

They make too many cookies and Steve piles them onto a plate, puts them in his lap and puts himself in Bucky's lap on the bed. They eat them, bite-for-you-and-a-bite-for-me style, until all that is left are crumbs.

"Last one," he says, as he slides a small, bell-shaped cookie past Bucky's lips. Bucky chews and swallows, darts his tongue out to lick the remaining crumbs from his lips. The cookies represent Steve's sugar ration for two weeks, and Steve knows that's part of the reason they are so unwilling to let them go to waste, but as Bucky slides a hand up Steve's waist and holds there, Steve is aware that it's not the only reason. It's just another reason to settle himself closer to Bucky, knees on either side of his lap.

"Merry Christmas," Bucky says softly against his ear. They look at the tree together for awhile, silent and pensive.

"I keep thinking that this Christmas coulda been real different if Project Rebirth hadn't failed," Steve sighs against Bucky's neck. "I'm kind of glad that it did, for once. Else I never woulda met you. Or, I guess, never woulda got to know you." He still doesn't know why Bucky chose to talk to him on the stoop that day, but he can't really bring himself to care. He's just glad it happened. That it had the chance to happen.

Bucky doesn't respond for a few minutes, not that Steve expects him to respond at all. He's actually somewhat surprised when Bucky says, "I keep thinking about how I wasn't sure I was ever gonna see another Christmas, this time last year." Steve utters a small, mournful noise into Bucky's neck. "In that camp, I was pretty sure I'd seen my last." His hand spasms against Steve's back. Steve isn't sure that Bucky realizes it, but his hands don't shake all the time. Only when he's thinking about it, or on bad days.

"Shh," Steve breathes. He curls himself into Bucky, bringing both legs to one side of his lap to sit properly on his thighs, ear against his shoulder, close enough to his heart to hear it beat a steady bah-bum against his hand. "We're okay, we're home, we're safe."

"I'm not havin' an episode, I'm just…" He sighs roughly against Steve's hair, frustrated. "They coulda taken all of this from me and I wouldn't have even known what I was missing, and that makes me so fuckin' angry. Sometimes I wonder if I woulda gotten to those pearly gates just for Saint Peter to look me in the eye and say _You missed everything that would have made your life worth something, you schmuck. You missed_ him _._ "

Steve's breath catches, because of all things he's not used to being talked about like _that_. Like he's something essential, like he's treasured. He takes one of Bucky's hands in both of his own, twines his long, thin fingers with Bucky's thick and calloused ones. Steve loves his hands, loves drawing them and touching them and feeling them. He brings Bucky's knuckles to his lips, kisses each one in turn.

"You're here now," Steve murmurs. "Don't think about could-have-beens. It doesn't do anyone a lick of good. You'll just make yourself sick."

"You sure you've never met my mom?" Bucky chuckles. Steve grins against his hand. With a sigh, Bucky takes his hand back and traces it down the side of Steve's face, swipes his thumb along the swell of his cheekbone. Eyes soft, he murmurs, "You know…I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you, Steve Rogers."

Steve kisses the pad of his thumb. "I love you too." He presses his mouth carefully against Bucky's neck, swells his tongue against his skin. "And you're here, and alive, and they're all probably dead and rotting. Even if they aren't, they don't have what you have.

"And what is it that I have?" Bucky murmurs, teasing, but the way he moves his hand up under Steve's shirt, skims along the skin of his back, says that he knows exactly what he has.

"Love," Steve says, "and…a warm place to sleep at night. A Christmas tree, a sugar ration…more good days than bad. Sex with your best guy." Steve lowers his eyes and smiles, pleased at his own cleverness, as he finds one of Bucky's nipples under his shirt and presses down with his thumb. "S'me, in case you were wondering."

Bucky grins and rolls his eyes, just a little. "What a punk," he says, and then, "Yeah you are." Then his mouth is slotted against Steve's and Steve's hands are in his hair as Bucky presses his shoulders backwards and his hips forwards and things become fuzzy for a long time.

* * *

Winifred Barnes is a hearty woman with the beginnings of silver through her dark hair. She greets Steve with a smile and a greeting as though this is the thousandth time they have met, and not the first.

"I knew your mother," she says kindly, both of Steve's hands in her own. "We lived in the same building for a number of years, when you were just a babe. You and James would have gone to the same school, when the time came, but my Mr. Barnes, may he rest in peace, was promoted around that time and we moved to this neighborhood, lost touch." She shrugs, pats his hand again. "These things happen." She sways away and into the kitchen and Steve sits down. Within fifteen minutes of coming in the door, he has a slice of cake in his hand—coffee forthcoming, Mrs. Barnes assures—and a toddler half-asleep beside him on the couch, almost in his lap.

"Is this…Becca?" Steve asks of the dozing toddler. He'd always thought that Bucky referring to Becca as his baby sister had been an endearment thing, not a literal thing, but he's been wrong before.

"Ha, no. Becca's ten and at school. That's Eleanor, Ellie. She's my younger brother Robert's."

"And your brother is…?" Steve is almost afraid to ask. That fear turns out to be warranted, as Bucky's face darkens before his eyes.

"Bobby was…the first one of us to ship out," Bucky mumbles. "They sent him to Java and he was dead within the month. He was only twenty-two. Ellie was practically a newborn."

Steve doesn't exactly know what to say to that. It's a common story that Steve has gotten adept at responding to, but Bucky is a different story altogether, one that Steve had been getting better and better at reading but which is more complicated _because_ of Steve's increasingly intimate knowledge of it. He can't offer any meaningless platitude, would actually hate himself if he did. It leaves him in a no-man's land.

"Where's her mom?"

"Died having her," Bucky sighs. "Ma's raising her now, and…Ellie's a good little kid, but my mom already did her child-rearing, and she did most it alone, too…sometimes I feel bad."

"'bout what?" Steve carefully scrapes the frosting off the cake with the tines of his fork, licks it off and does not meet Bucky's eyes in case this is one of those conversations that is better had without eye contact.

"Well, y'know. I'm young and able-bodied. Sometimes I feel like I should be the one running around after the two-year-old, not her."

"It's not your fault her dad died," Steve sighs, glancing at Eleanor. She has the same coloring that Bucky and his mother do, but her hair is thinner and redder and her face is sweetly heart-shaped, little nose and big eyes combining to make her look more cherubic than the baby fat can do alone. "But if you feel so bad about it, you could probably take over watching her every once in a while."

"It's not as effective if you can't get the kid out of the house," Bucky says. "I think I need to work on getting _myself_ out of my ma's hair before I can think about nannying that one."

"For the last time, James Buchanan." Winifred maneuvers herself back into the room, three cups of coffee held on a tea tray. "You are not in my hair. Lord thunderin' Jesus, you went to _war_! Did you ever think that I like having you around as a reminder that you're still alive?"

Bucky sighs, eyes fluttering closed and jaw clenched. Steve clamps his fingers over his mouth to keep himself from laughing.

"I'm almost twenty-seven years old, Ma! What kind of self-respecting—"

"My eldest son went to war and now he's trying to leave me again!"

"I'm just tryin' to say that I'm too old to be livin' at home and you're _definitely_ too old to raise another kid, Jesus _wept_!"

"Don't you dare bring my age into this, James Buchanan…"

Steve is watching Ellie's face when her eyes pop open. They make eye contact for a moment before Steve says, "So, sleepyhead, are they always like this?"

Ellie sighs with an expression that reminds him of a childish equivalent to the one Bucky just gave. Steve grins and pats her back.

* * *

On May eighth, the day that will come to be known as V.E. Day sees people dancing in the streets. They listen to President Truman's announcement together on the couch, curled around each other with their faces turned towards the wireless. Afterwards, Steve tunes it to the easy listening channel, pulls Bucky off the sofa and dances around his tiny apartment with the man he loves in his arms.

"You should call your mom," Steve says, on the third or fourth song. "She'll want to know that Bill is coming home." Winifred Barnes had all three of her sons go away to war. Robert—Bobby—was first to leave and only to die, going down with a destroyer in the Pacific in '42. Bucky left shortly after, to fight in the European Theatre. They sent her an MIA notice when he was captured. He was a dead man for five months before he was rescued. He came home just as his youngest brother Bill—William—left for bootcamp in Indiana, newly eighteen and ready to bask in the glory of fighting for his country. He and Bucky missed each other at the train station by less than a day. Bucky did not have a chance to look his brother in the eyes and tell him that the glory of war is a fallacy.

"I'm sure she knows already," Bucky says. He leans down, drops a kiss on the shell of Steve's ear and then the corner of his jaw, real gentle, and splays his hand on the small of Steve's back. "The entire damn world was probably listening to that speech."

"Hmm." Steve raises an eyebrow.

"I'll do it in a few minutes," Bucky mutters. "Just let me hold you a little while longer."

Steve tingles with affection. He rests his temple against Bucky's collarbone. "Alright."

"So," Bucky murmurs, "You gonna get rid'a me now that I'm not the only pretty guy in New York?" His tone is lighthearted, jesting, but _many a true word is spoken in jest._

"If anyone should be asking that question, it should be me," Steve mumbles. "I ain't even that pretty." He's not completely lacking in any form of self esteem; he knows that he has redeemable features, big eyes that make him look at least somewhat comely, albeit in a girlish way. He knows that he's smart and he can carry on a conversation and his hair is soft and he has a lot less _of_ it than most guys, which appeals to some people. But he also knows that his nose has been broken a few times and his hands and feet don't match the rest of his body, and even if the serum cured his internal ailments, scoliosis still did its damage to his back and he never stands quite straight, and not very tall.

He knows that it'd be easy for someone to settle for him. He always figured that he'd find someone more like him; one foot on either side of the line that marks the difference between 'averagely attractive' and 'tolerably homely.' Bucky is very firmly not even in the same _region_ as Steve; he is in a category that Steve has come up with many phrases for, including _desperately beautiful_ and _man alive, but he's gorgeous_.

Bucky knots his fingers into Steve's shirt and says, "You know I'm yours, right?"

"I know," Steve says, mouth turned into Bucky's chest, almost entirely muffled by his shirt.

"And you're mine, right?"

"Yes," Steve assures immediately, damn near flinging himself away from Bucky to get his mouth free from fabric. "Yes, of course. I'm yours in every way I can be." And maybe some he really shouldn't be, too. He knows, somewhere deep inside himself, that if the occasion should ever arise, he would almost certainly die for Bucky Barnes.

Bucky gives a smile—a small, fractured thing, but beautiful. All the broken bits of Bucky Barnes are jagged and might never heal, but Steve likes to think that those same broken parts fit into his own. That, maybe even if he can't, Steve's love is a balm that can soothe the hurt, if not completely get rid of it. He knows that when he is standing there, buried under the weight of all his own failure, the knowledge that Bucky loves him, that he is loved, is enough to help him buck it off and continue.

* * *

Summer rolls into Brooklyn with a sweltering heat wave. Steve lays on the floor with nothing on but shorts and an undershirt, grateful for Doctor Erskine and his serum, grateful for the fact that this is the first summer that breathing in humidity like this is not akin to trying to breathe underwater.

Bucky lets himself in and immediately begins shedding clothes. By the time he reaches Steve, he is similarly attired. Steve looks up at him, seeming to tower higher than the Empire State Building from this angle, and says, "You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking, James Barnes."

"It's too hot to understand a sentence like that, Steve," Bucky says as he—yes, Steve knew it—lowers himself down onto his knees and then presses all of his sweaty, overheated skin against all of Steve's sweaty, overheated skin. "Have mercy on me."

"Have mercy on _me_." Steve gives a half-hearted shove. "You're going to melt me. I'll turn into a puddle, and then where will we be?"

Bucky licks a strip from his sternum to his jaw. "I'll lick you up off the floor."

There is no helping the gasp Steve lets out, arching up off the floor with a sort of sting when his skin separates from the floor, where his sweat had been trying to fuse flesh and wood into one abomination of a being. A response somewhere between _yes please do_ and _you disgust me—keep doing it_ gets caught in his throat when the door bangs open again.

Steve's apartment is of such a design that there is no way to hide from the view of the front door unless one either wiggles their way completely under the bed or happens to be, for some reason or another, in the closet. Steve and Bucky, laying at the foot of Steve's bed and more or less right smackdab in the middle of the apartment, are in full view of one Rebecca Barnes as she flings open the door and gets half of her brother's name out of her mouth before it is caught, cough-like, in her throat.

There is really no denying what they are doing. Becca is eleven but she is a wise eleven. Winifred Barnes does not raise fools or ninnies. Becca knows what she's seeing.

"Becca," Bucky lets out, strangled. This as he shoves away from Steve—and Steve is not offended, because he is separating from Bucky at equal speed, to the point where they are practically pressed to opposite walls by the time Bucky gets both syllables out. "What are you doing here?"

Becca glances between the two of them, mouth very slightly open and brow furrowed. "You forgot the cookies Ma told you to bring Steve…" She holds up a plate with aluminum foil covering it, almost as an afterthought. "I, uh…here." She puts them on the counter and bids a hasty retreat.

"Becca, wait!" Bucky yells. He picks up his clothes and messily dresses himself, shirt untucked and suspenders around his knees. He tries to run out the door after his sister, but Steve grabs his arm. He turns slightly, looks at Steve with eyes that have betrayal in them and Steve wonders who that betrayal is directed at. On the chance that it is meant for him, he defends himself.

"Don't you dare go running out of my apartment looking like that," Steve hisses. "Half the neighborhood will know what just happened here, and they'll have far less reason to not call the cops than your own family. Get properly dressed and then go after her."

"Steve, I gotta get her before she goes and tells my ma!" Bucky, never one to waste time, is already trying to haphazardly tuck his shirt in, trying to make himself presentable as quickly as possible. Steve smoothes down his hair and clips his suspenders on right.

"She'll tell your ma whether you catch up to her or not," Steve sighs. "Now that she knows, there's no way to make her _un_ know. And you can't be standing next to her every time she's in the same room as your ma for the rest of your lives. It's happened, Buck. Now we've gotta…roll with the punches." He slides the resizer up Bucky's suspender until it's taut and nods. "Alright, go now."

Bucky stands there, staring down at Steve as if unsure, as if afraid. Steve knows how he feels.

"I don't know what's going to happen now."

Steve reaches a hand around his waist, squeezes there. "I don't know either."

"I'll tell them it was me, if I gotta," Bucky says. "I'll tell them I—I took advantage of you, that it wasn't—"

"You'll do no such thing," Steve snaps. "What good will that do, making yourself out to be a criminal _and_ a deviant? Christ, Bucky."

"I just…" Bucky sighs, shakes his head. "I'll be back."

"You better be," Steve says, and it's in an attempt to make light of the situation, but it comes out far more seriously than he intended. They both know what could be waiting for Bucky when he walks out that door.

* * *

Steve answers the door to an insistent knocking about four hours later. Steve opens the door, expecting just about anything—Bucky, with his entire life and all his possessions at his feet; a cop, come to arrest him—and receives Bill Barnes, standing there and frowning, looking like a shorter clone of his older brother. All except for the eyes. They're darker and they're missing something that only Bucky has.

"Bill," he says, unsure.

"My ma," Bill says, "said she wants to see you."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Steve says, and he tells himself that he's saying it for Winifred's best interests. She's a respectable woman, real traditional, and she might say or do something she doesn't want to if she sees Steve right now.

Bill's frown deepens. "What's going on, Steve?"

"I, um…your ma didn't tell you?"

"Nah, she just sent me over here as soon as I got home."

Steve sighs, squeezes his eyes closed. Rubs the back of his neck. "I'd rather not tell you right now, Bill. Is that okay? I'll go see your mom, though, if she's sure that's what she wants."

"She seemed pretty adamant about it," Bill says. "And, I mean…if it's none of my business, it's none of my business. I'll keep my nose out if it."

"Thank you, Bill." Steve opens the closet and pulls out his shoes, puts them on his feet and follows Bill out of the apartment, down the stairs and over two blocks to the Barnes'. There is utter silence from the two-bedroom that the Barnes occupy together and that, in itself, is problematic. At any given time, the home has at least two occupants, and the Barneses are not a quiet family; not like the Rogerses, who could go hours and days without saying more than a few sentences at a time, purely for lack of necessity. The Barneses are an affectionate family in love with the sound of their own noise, and it's something Steve has come to appreciate about them.

Mrs. Barnes and her eldest son are at the kitchen table, not looking at each other. Becca is nowhere to be found and as soon as Bill comes in the door, Steve on his heels, Winifred says, "Thank you, William. Could you give us a moment?"

Bill frowns. "Ma…"

"William," Mrs. Barnes says testily. "Please."

Bill leaves without further protest, slinking into the room he shares with his brother. The door to the room Mrs. Barnes shares with her daughter and granddaughter is closed as well. Steve has no allusions that those younger Barnes who have the ability and desire will have their ears shoved against the doorjambs, but at this point he can't bring himself to care overly much.

Steve sits down at the table, deliberately placing himself closer to Bucky because no matter what, he is not letting Bucky make a martyr of himself.

He clears his throat. "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Barnes."

There is a beat of silence. Mrs. Barnes says, "For what?"

Steve, sure he is being tested, clears his throat. "For, uh, what Becca saw. It wasn't my—or Bucky's—intention to—we didn't think…and I apologize for…the strain that this will put on your family. And, ah, I'm sorry ma'am…that I can't be sorry for what I've done. I can't be sorry for loving your son. All I can be sorry for is that…Becca saw what she did."

The silence in the room is heavy, oppressive. If Steve did not know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the serum had cured him of his asthma, he would think he was on the verge of an attack. The oxygen does not find his lungs easily as he waits for Mrs. Barnes' verdict.

At last, she stands up. Steve takes the opportunity of her turned back to look at Bucky, reach out and squeeze his hand. Bucky offers a smile that does not reach his eyes and squeezes back.

"Becca knows better than to barge into other people's homes without knocking," Winifred says, as she turns around and sets a glass of milk in front of each of them, a platter of the same cookies Becca brought them earlier following in short order. "And I'm sorry for that. She's still young." She sits down again, the chair creaking. "I've asked you here to request that you lock your door from now on. Not all children, or adults, are as polite as I teach my children to be. It's the sensible thing to do."

Steve, still unable to meet her eyes, uses the cookies as substitute and stares at them in confusion. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't—"

"I also think that it would be best if James went to live with you," Mrs. Barnes says. "Not because I want to disown him, but because I think he'll thrive much better with you, now that I know the true nature of your…attachment." She meets her son's gaze levelly over her own glass of milk. "And it's only appropriate. If you had been a woman, Steve, I would have told him to marry you months ago. Seeing as that isn't possible…this is what I'm telling him. Move in with this boy, James."

"Mammy." Bucky's voice is small, broken. Steve learned a little while ago that 'mammy' is what the Barnes boys called their mother when they were babes. They still revert to it, when they're scared or sad or happy or any other mix of complex emotions. Steve was there on the day Bill returned from war, watched him cling to his mother and repeat _mammy_ over and over, and imagined a very similar scene with Bucky, when he returned.

"I've already lost one son to nonsense violence and prejudice," Mrs. Barnes says. "Lord knows I've had enough of it myself. I'm not going to turn away my own son just for loving another man. Things may have been different, before the war, or if your father were still…but I've seen too much, James. I've lost enough. I won't send you out of my life any more than I'll step on your brother's grave." She reaches her pudgy hand across the table and take's Bucky's, his fingers long and brown and calloused. She brings his hand to her lips, kisses it and pats it. "You were my first baby, James. You'll always be my first baby."

Bucky brings her hand to his forehead, bowed over it as if in prayer. His face crumbles, shoulders shuddering. "I'm sorry, Mammy, I'm—"

"Don't apologize for what you are," she says. "We all have our burdens, James. Don't apologize for yours unless you plan to stop. Do you plan to stop loving him?" Where Mrs. Barnes had been speaking directly to Steve earlier, she is now very obviously only talking to her son, and Steve feels distinctly as if he should not be listening, but he has no way to excuse himself.

"I couldn't even if I wanted to," Bucky whispers. "And I don't want to. He's…he's my everything."

Mrs. Barnes' face is gentle and soft when Steve, at last, chances to look at her. "I know, sweet boy."

* * *

Bucky brings all of his things—two boxes of clothes, a pillow and two records—to Steve's on a Tuesday. Steve spends a long time staring at their things mingling in the closet and sighs to himself. Bucky comes to him, wraps his arms around Steve's waist and rests his chin on his head. "You'll work yourself into a swoon, sighing like that." He laughs, low and beautiful, when Steve gives a disgruntled grunt. "What're you thinking about?"

"A lot of things," Steve says. He traces Bucky's arm with his fingertips.

"Good things?" Bucky whispers into his ear.

"Most of 'em." He stares at his and Bucky's things, what it means, and the fact that nobody can ever know what it means. Nobody can ever know that inside this apartment, they are lovers and so much more. "Wondering when…things'll change. If they will."

"Shh." Bucky kisses his temple. "You'll make yourself sick thinking about things like that."

But Steve still does.

* * *

A persistent knocking rents the room on a Sunday several weeks later, six months almost to the day since V.E. Day. Bucky groans and yells, "AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY, _HE RESTED_ ," towards the door. The knocking continues. Steve begins the laborious task of wriggling out from under Bucky's arm, golden and heavy on top of him. Logically, Steve knows that he has the ability to sent Bucky flipping backwards, but it's not what he wants to do.

What is waiting for him at the door is the last thing he expected.

"Peggy," he says, as surprised as it's possible for one man to be. He has the door cracked so that only his face is visible, the lump of Bucky on the bed hidden. "I'm sorry, my roommate doesn't like mornings—"

"Steve," she says, looking equally as surprised to see him even though it was her to knock on his door. "Is this your apartment?"

"Yes," he says slowly. "Shouldn't you know that?"

"It's not you I'm looking for, I'm afraid," Peggy says. She sounds genuinely apologetic and her pretty face is twisted into one of regret. Steve forgot how beautiful she was. He could have loved her, he thinks, in another time and place. "Although, I suppose it's…convenient. Would your roommate by any chance happen to be Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th?"

Steve doesn't hear the footsteps behind him until it's too late, Bucky has already opened the door all the way, revealing himself in a robe, scowl on his face. "Yeah, that's me alrigh—" he stops as he takes in Peggy. "Agent Carter?"

"Sergeant Barnes," she says, schooling her features back into something more appropriate, neutral and businesslike. "I'm sorry to be calling on you so early, but some new information has come to light about your…experience in Azzano." She glances at Steve, obviously unsure what she can and cannot say about it. "I'd like to ask you a few questions and…possibly, if you're able, bring you in for further questioning and…" She doesn't finish her sentence, still looking at Steve.

Bucky stands there for a long moment, propped against the door with a hand above Steve's head. Steve is trapped between them in only pajama pants, shivering because it's November now and really quite chilly. What a picture they might make to an onlooker; dark, statuesque Bucky on one side in only a robe, Peggy on the other with clothing carefully pressed and not a hair out of place, stunning and intimidating; between them, tiny Steve with his blonde hair, blue eyes and disproportionately large feet and hands, grey pajama bottoms (Which are Bucky's, and so obviously so that Steve cannot believe he was so stupid as to answer the door in such a state) cinched tight around his waist, pooling around his feet.

"I ain't gonna be experimented on again, Agent," Bucky says. "Not even for the good guys. I owe you one for getting me out, and I'm willing to repay that debt, but not like this."

"Wait, it was her who got you out?" Steve asks, whipping his head around to look at Bucky. "You never told me she was the one who got you out." He looks back at Peggy. "You…"

"I didn't know you'd know her if I mentioned her," Bucky defends. Then, "How do _you_ know her."

"She was…when I…"

"Sorry, but how long have you known each other?" Peggy, who appears just as confused as Steve feels and Bucky looks.

They simultaneously fall silent then, absorbed in a strange, three-way staring contest as they try to figure out how in the world fate has managed to bring all three of them to this exact moment, independent of one another, three different relationships conglomerated into one.

It is Bucky who shakes it off first. "Give us ten minutes, Agent. Make ourselves decent." Then he closes the door without waiting for a reply. Steve would accuse him of rudeness if that same rudeness was not what gave him a moment to think. He pulls on some actual clothing, tries to comb his hair into something resembling order. Behind him, Bucky shuffles around with his comb and a tin of pomade.

Slowly, Steve says, "I told you everything I thought I could. There were some things I…"

"Steve, it's fine," Bucky says. He means it too, if the way he sets down his things and frames Steve's face with his hands is any indication. "We were never gonna be able to tell each other everything. In the grand scheme of things, I think both of us having history with the same dame is far from the worst thing that could have happened."

Steve sighs heavily and straightens Bucky's suspenders, because he always leaves them too loose when he's not thinking, almost to the point of slipping off his shoulders. Bucky sits still for it, the same way Steve sits still when Bucky straightens his unruly hair or rubs charcoal off his nose. When he's done, he tiptoes up to buss his mouth against Bucky's, just slightly. "Comb your hair, we've gotta let her in the door sometime his century."

So they do, and Peggy sits on the couch while Steve sits on the end of the bed and Bucky stands, because he likes to fidget when he's worried or stressed, shift from one foot to the other, uncross and recross his arms, rub his eyebrows and run both hands through his hair. It's a dance that Steve knows well, and one that starts before Peggy even starts talking, before she says, "Understand your reservations, Sergeant, but—"

"Bucky," he interrupts. "My friends call me Bucky, Agent, and considering you once helped me drag my sorry ass out of a pile of rubble, I'm comfortable considering you a friend."

Peggy smiles, knots her hands together in her lap. "Thank you, Bucky. In that case, I'd like you to call me Peggy. And I'd like you not to take it the wrong way when I tell you that…the S.S.R. needs information on how Hydra's experiments have affected you. It would help us immensely to understand what the effects of this serum are, both short term and long term, and your cooperation would be _greatly_ appreciated, as our subject pool is…incredibly limited. In fact, you are one of only two people whom we believe to have survived exposure to a serum developed by a scientist named Doctor Abraham Erskine. The other is…well…" she glances at Steve. "It appears you've met him."

Steve says. "I'm not interested in keeping secrets from him."

"Same goes for me," Bucky says, planting himself into a wide stance that, for once, he doesn't fidget from. "So why don't you tell us what the S.S.R. wants from me?"

"Ideally, the S.S.R. would like to run some follow-up analysis on both of you," she says. "Nothing invasive. Stress tests, strength tests…we'll likely listen to your heart and lungs, Steve, and see how much they differ from your baseline. We may need to take blood, but I can personally assure you that even that will be minimal."

She waits for Steve and Bucky, falls silent and watches them make eye contact over her head. Even Steve isn't sure how they do it, but they manage an entire conversation without words. When Bucky speaks, it's for both of them.

"I won't be tied down to any more steel tables," Bucky says. "Or cut open. But if seeing how much I can lift or…drawing a few pints of blood is gonna help something, I guess I'm not gonna say no."

Peggy looks to Steve, and upon his nod, she gives one of her own. She stands up and says, "The S.S.R. currently operates out of the phone company on West Street. Chief Dooley will be expecting you on Monday."

Steve sees her to the door and leans back against it when it closes, sighs heavily. He glances at Bucky, who's already taking his suspenders off again. Steve says, "So…that just happened."

"Come back to bed," Bucky said, voice gone soft and quiet. He unclips his suspenders and lets them fall to the floor, toes off the shoes he just put on ten minutes ago—because unless he's sleeping or sexing, Bucky always has shoes on his feet; Steve isn't sure why, it's just a thing, a _Bucky_ thing—and gets back into bed, otherwise fully dressed. Steve joins him in short order, divesting himself of suspenders and shoes as well. When he falls into bed, Bucky gets his arms around him from behind, hugs Steve to his chest like he's Bucky's own personal teddy bear. "It's too early to up. And we're gonna have a busy day tomorrow, it'd seem."

"Mm." Steve relaxes into the mattress. It's strange but comforting, this act of falling asleep at dawn, cocooned by clothes and sheets and Bucky. He lazily rubs his feet against Bucky's, bends one arm under his head and one over Bucky's arm across his chest, and does not ask _what's going to happen now_ , because Bucky doesn't know the answer any more than he does.

* * *

The S.S.R.'s further experiments reveal exactly what it was assumed they would.  Bucky and Steve are put through a multitude of tests for five days and come out on the other side battered, bruised and exhausted but with a greater understanding of what is happening to them.

The serum acts like a virus. It gets into every cell, every nook and cranny of their systems, and takes them over. They have four times the metabolism of normal humans, can life five times the weight. They can't get sick, and allergies are a thing of the past; the serum attacks any foreign pathogens with prejudice. Countless other effects, the scientists tell them, will come to light as they get older. There is no telling what the serum will do to natural processes of aging, of cell degeneration.

"So what you're saying," Bucky says slowly, "is that…there's a possibility that we won't get old?"

"What I'm saying, Mr. Barnes," says the lead scientist, "is that there is a very high _probability_ that your aging process will be dramatically slowed…if, indeed, you will age at all."

It will take awhile to take that in. Time which, of course, they are not given. As soon as the scientists walk out of the room, Chief Dooley walks in and offers them a job. A position as Agents of the S.S.R.

"We could use people like you," he says, and waits for their response.

There is really none to give but _yes_.

* * *

Abraham Erskine, along with the only surviving sample of his serum, are kidnapped in the early hours of the morning one day in January. The same day, Howard Stark is found guilty of selling government secrets, including weapons, to enemies of the United States. It is assumed by most that one of the secrets Stark sold was the whereabouts of one Doctor Abraham Erskine. Howard Stark flees the country and the S.S.R. immediately puts all resources into finding him, leaving Bucky and Steve in a sort of no-man's land of conflicting orders because, late at night two weeks later, Peggy Carter pays her second visit to their Brooklyn apartment.

When Steve opens the door, he can immediately tell that this is not a social call. Peggy looks…not distressed, but rather perturbed, and she looks like she might have recently been in a fight. Bucky looks up from the bed, where he's sitting on the end and polishing his shoes, and drops both shoe and rag.

"Sorry to be coming so late," Peggy says, "but it seems that…something strange is happening and…you were the only people I could think of to help." She looks between them, some strange mixture of sure of herself but uncertain of her words. "Howard Stark contacted me. He wants me to commit treason. His argument was…very compelling."

"You'd better come in," Steve says.

* * *

Edwin Jarvis is a quirky fella in both looks and mannerisms, but whose loyalty is immediately apparent, strong and fierce. Over the next month, Steve feels like he spends more hours than there are in the day running after Peggy, or Peggy and Bucky, or Peggy and Jarvis, or leading Peggy, Bucky and Jarvis into strange situations. They infiltrate the Roxxon Oil Refinery and watch it blow up. They watch an entire lake disappear into absolute nothingness. They find Stark's weapons, but it only opens an entirely new can of worms, and they get no closer to finding Doctor Erskine.

It's a wild several weeks.

* * *

Peggy, through some greater genius, decrypts a message send via crosscontintental typewriter. It claims that Abraham Erskine is being kept in a Soviet military complex. Peggy makes a campaign to go to Russia with a taskforce, see if they can extract Erskine. The bigwigs that run the S.S.R., whom Steve has come to resent and whom Bucky has come to openly ridicule, to their faces, even as they try to keep their actions covert, are not having any of it.

Until, that is, Peggy mentions the 107th.

"Those were my guys," Bucky says eagerly, "That was my regiment. Are some of them still out there?"

Peggy says, "Most of them took the out that you did, but several of them stayed in the European Theatre. They formed a commando group under the command of Dum Dum Dugan." To Dooley and Thompson, she adds, "They've seen more combat than most of the people in this organization put together. I'm confident in their ability to help us negotiate the territory, but they won't work with us unless I go with you."

There is a tense staring contest. Bucky and Peggy versus Thompson and Dooley, Steve tense in the background.

"What about if we take Barnes?" Thompson asks. "If these are his guys—"

"I won't go without Agent Carter," Bucky says. "And Dugan isn't the most compromising of fellas. He's got a pretty strict moral code, and rule number one is that a soldier is a soldier, man or woman, no matter what he looks like. He learned that the hard way and he ain't above teaching it to someone the hard way, either."

Thompson goes silent, with that constipated look he's so good at giving. Chief Dooley, whom Steve has come to grudgingly respect, if only for his superior position, says, "How quickly can you get in contact with Dugan and his commandos?"

Peggy smiles. "I'll have their answer within the hour."

The Commandos, of course, say yes.

* * *

The tactical gear that the S.S.R. provides looks stupidly good on Bucky. Steve makes the mistake of following him into the locker room when he changes, and suffers through his hands twitching, watching as Bucky puts on the tac, settling back into the role. The transition from civilian back into soldier is almost visible as Bucky putting on the gear; it's in the way his shoulders square when he puts on the vest, in the way he stands a little straighter, in the way his hands automatically go to the heavy belt around his waist. They give him a gun, a rifle, which he puts across his back with ease.

Steve waits until the rest are out of the locker room then wraps himself around Bucky, pulls his face down and mashes their lips together. Bucky feels hard in a way he usually doesn't, underneath the tac gear, and Steve is at war with himself over whether he likes it or not. He's carefully not to touch Bucky's hair, because he has it carefully combed back, smooth and beautiful, and Bucky doesn't need to go into the locker room put together and come out looking torn apart. Questions will be asked.

"I need you to be careful," Steve says, still kissing. "I need you to come back. Can't lose you, got it? _Can't_."

"I know," Bucky says. "I'll be fine, baby. I know how to keep myself in one piece. You heard the scientists—a bullet could probably go right through me and there wouldn't even be a hole."

"Yeah, well, let's not test that theory." He kisses Bucky's neck, his jaw, and his lips again. "I love you. Be careful."

"Love you too."

The door bangs open and Peggy announces that it's time to leave. Steve and Bucky stare at her, still in each other's arms. Peggy doesn't show any overt outward reaction, but comes further into the locker room and lets the door shut behind her, leans against it to keep anyone else from entering. She says, "I know that parting is such sweet sorrow, but you do realize that this locker room is accessible by the entire office?" Her tone is teasing and her mouth is soft.

"Uh," Bucky says. Steve pulls away.

"I'll head off the others for a few more minutes," she says. "Say your goodbyes, and let's go. We're expected in Russia by tonight."

Then she leaves, and Bucky and Steve are left to contemplate each other and the enigma that is Peggy Carter.

"I gotta go," Bucky says, "but I'll be coming back, and then we're gonna talk about our mutual lack of common sense."

"Oh boy," Steve says dryly. He smiles though, and presses his lips to Bucky's again.

* * *

When Peggy and Bucky return, it's with a Russian psychologist and the news that Abraham Erskine is dead.

* * *

When the dust settles on the situation, and Howard Stark's name is cleared, three things are apparent.

One: The S.S.R. is no longer the organization it was during the war. It is self-destructive and will not survive much longer in its current incarnation.

Two: The world _needs_ an organization like what the S.S.R. intended to be; who will combat the threats as they happen, and not only once they've already destroyed something precious. An organization that knows how to handle all of the strange, new threats that are arising in the world as the arms race continues and the entire world continues trying to create and implement super serums and super soldiers.

Three: The government cannot be trusted to form such an organization. It must be formed from the underground up. So that's what they do.

The day that S.H.I.E.L.D. is founded, its founders take an impromptu picture in the bunker at Camp Lehigh that they have shoved six desks into. Dugan does the camera work and Jarvis stays as far out of frame as possible, because it's achieved a healthy dislike for having his picture taken after the S.S.R. debacle. That leaves Peggy, Bucky, Steve, and Howard in the picture.

Peggy is in the foreground, the place of honor. She leans with her hip against the first desk and she will never have so much life, never exude so much raw confidence, as she does in this black-and-white picture. Even though people looking at this picture years from now will not know that her lipstick is a fire red and her eyes are a burning cinnamon and her hair is like a cascade of molten chocolate, they will see her face, the pure determination and will to change the world, to make it a better place, and that is all that matters.

Howard stands behind her with a trademark smirk that has gotten him out of so many sticky situations and has gotten him _into_ even more. In the coming decades, he'll become a colder, more bitter version of himself. His skin will slowly yellow with alcoholism and finally, one night, he will get into a car accident which will kill himself and his wife and leave his sixteen-year-old son parentless, with a bitterness in his heart that rivals his father's. But for now, and forever more in this picture, he will be young and brilliant, like a star that will never burn out.

Bucky and Steve stand further back in the picture. Steve sits on a desk, hands on his knees and leaning forward, smiling for the camera. Bucky leans on the desk behind him. It would not be obvious to anyone just casually examining the picture, but those in the know can see. That Bucky's hands are closer to Steve's hips than first realized, that Steve seems to be leaning back rather than forward. They have their own sense of gravity, one that is tuned purely to each other. It will be the last photo taken of Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes.

But as it is only the beginning of S.H.I.E.L.D., so is it only the beginning of the mythos, the legend, of Steve and Bucky, Rogers and Barnes.

* * *

**2009**

On the day that Maria Hill is promoted to Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., her clearance is upped to Level Nine. She has the highest clearance in the organization, aside from the director himself, and that comes with its own batch of secrets. The day after she is promoted, she has her first encounter with two of them.

There are two men waiting for her in her office. One is tall and brunet, has a kind of classic look about him; clean shaven, dimpled chin, hair parted at the side. With the hipster movement, a lot of vintage looks are coming back into vogue, but there's something about this guy that calls to a different place, a different time even though he couldn't be older than Maria herself. His outfit is stylish but nondescript, a leather jacket over a blue tee, a pair of well-fitted jeans.

The other man is much smaller, blond. It's hard to get a read on him. His hair is styled to be much more modern, artfully gelled in the front and short in the back. The hooded jacket he wears is two sizes too big for him, his jeans are tight and tucked into a pair of combat boots. He looks like a college student and Maria is trained enough to know that a college student is exactly what he _wants_ to look like, especially with those glasses that Maria can tell are not prescription. The lenses are simply a thin layer of plastic, like someone forgot to put the tint on a pair of sunglasses.

However, the strangest thing about the pair is the out of place sense of recognition Maria feels upon seeing them. It's the same sense of déjà vu one gets from recognizing an actor, but being unsure of what that actor was in. She stares at them from the doorway of her office for several long beats of silence.

"We're not here to threaten you, Agent Hill," says the blond one, "we're just here to introduce ourselves. Steve Rogers." He holds out a hand, which she shakes.

"Bucky Barnes," says the other, and shakes her hand as well.

"Are you S.H.I.E.L.D.?" she asks, glancing between the two of them. One of them, Barnes, is now sitting on one of two chairs in front of her desk, and Rogers perches himself on the arm. She winds around her desk and sits at the chair, not removing her eyes from them.

"Yes," Barnes says.

"I'm assuming you two are here to bring me into the know regarding clearance level nine?"

Rogers smiles. "We more or less _are_ clearance level nine."

Maria nods, willing to accept the vague answer for now. "Alright. So what is it, exactly, that makes you two so…special?"

Instead of responding, Rogers gets up and pulls his phone out of a back pocket, taps it several times and slides it across the desk to Maria. "That picture. You've seen it, I'm sure. Do you know what it's of?"

Maria doesn't need to examine the picture to know what it is. "Well yes, I know what it is. Considering there's a eight by ten version of it in most S.H.I.E.L.D. field offices, I've seen it many times. The title of it is, I think, the Founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. The woman in the picture is Peggy Carter, first director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the man is Howard Stark, and…well, the two men in the background have never been named." She looks back up at them, raises her eyebrows. "It was taken in a bunker at Camp Lehigh in 1946. Were you looking for a more specific answer?"

"Look closer at the two men in the background," Barnes says.

So Hill does so, and at first does not understand what is being asked of her. Then she enlarges the faces of the men, blows them up on the phone, and they come into sharp focus.

They are identical to the two men sitting in front of her.

Slowly, she says, "I'm going to assume that these aren't your grandfathers."

"No," Rogers says, an odd gentle tone to his voice, like he's breaking some bad news to her. "Those two men are us. Over sixty years ago."

"So you're…"

"Ninety-one," Rogers says. Jerks his head at Barnes. "He's ninety-two." Before she has a chance to respond to that, he continues, "Have you heard of the work of Doctor Abraham Erskine? Or a wartime experiment called Project Rebirth?"

Maria says, "My God, you're the man from Brooklyn." Much of Doctor Erskine's experiments were redacted by the S.S.R. following the failure of Project Rebirth, including the name of the test subject. He is referred to only as the 'Man from Brooklyn.' "Both of you?"

"No, I'm the unfortunate result of some Nazi meddling," Barnes says. "Long story short…we don't age. Or if we do, it'll take us a long time to do it. We helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. and now we deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the shadows. At level nine, you're officially at a high enough clearance to know that we exist, so the purpose of today's visit was just to let you know that we…y'know, exist." He smiles, and it's charming but not deliberately. Like he can't help but exude it. "Only you and Director Fury know who we are."

Maria Hill stares at the two men in her office, these men out of time, and notices something peculiar then.

She says, "It's nice to meet you then, I suppose."

She doesn't mention the matching wedding bands on their fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't ask me the motivations for writing this fic, I literally have none. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had to rush the end, but I hope it was still enjoyable.  
> Thank you for reading!


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